Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 229 posts

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#61

Post by baursak »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

There's a simple solution to it, no? Abolish all taxes on income, dividends, or capital gains. Introduce a single tax on wealth. Every year tax a certain percentage of one's capital holdings, whether capital gain is realized or not.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#62

Post by jrimbault »

inetknght wrote: post #19
jrimbault wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we'd have to redo/relearn the last millenium of why we do the things the way we do them.

Is that such a bad idea?

Not necessarily. But in that case we wouldn't argue for a "simple" tax system. A tax system has to be complicated because humans and their activities are complicated things.

edit: at that point, if we threw out the tax system, why not just get rid of states and corporations and start everything from scratch, said the junior dev

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#63

Post by sharemywin »

neonhomer wrote: post #6
sharemywin wrote: post #3

I'm not sure why so many people look up to the rich. They fail at kinder-garden. I have to work very hard to help my 4 year old to understand how to share. If your using money to keep score your probably using the wrong system to keep score. I've been using weight watchers lately and keep score with the right system helps a lot.

> If your using money to keep score your probably using the wrong system to keep score. I think another side of the problem is 99% of people who are not rich are using the same score and since they are "losing" they hate the rich. If we all stop using money as the score we'd all be better off.

you're actually proving my point, btw. Hating the rich isn't the solution either. Still keeping score based on money. Not that you should spend a lot of time judging other people, but if you want to turn "lifetime achievement" into a score maybe we should find another scoring system.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#64

Post by crispyambulance »

jazzyk wrote: post #30
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

The solution is just not that complicated: 1. For individuals, simple tax code which does not distinguish where your income came from, but does keep income brackets (not flat tax). 2. For businesses, distinguish between: - "US-based" company which would pay 10% corporate tax. A US-based company would need to have at least 66% of employees based in the US and/or at least 50% of the products/services produced in the US…

A simple tax code would be beautiful thing.

Unfortunately, its never going to happen. It will be phone-book-sized for the foreseeable future.

Even loopholes which, by common sense, should be closed are fought against with ferocity. For example, the corporate jet loophole-- effectively a "gift" for millionaires and their corporations... https://qz.com/196369/why-buying-a-corporate-jet-pays-for-it...

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#65

Post by cpursley »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

A progressive national sales tax. Because you can't avoid buying goods and services, and not everyone gets a W2 paycheck (Buffet, Gates, Trump).

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#66

Post by JSONwebtoken »

quickConclusion wrote: post #42

"The theory behind all those high-end tax cuts [...] was that it would unleash entrepreneurial energy [...] The first half of that theory may well have come true. Many of the world’s most successful companies are American — not only Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, but also Exxon Mobil, Walmart, Johnson & Johnson and JPMorgan Chase." The article fails to mention that even when the tax code was 90% on the highest e…

When the tax code was 90%, the effective tax rate was 10-15%. You clearly aren't informed in your history of American industry.

For an individual to make $2 million a year for himself at a 90% tax rate, he would have to own 100% of a company generating $20 million in profit.

Assuming the same individual's skills were worth $200k/yr in market salary, you would be suggesting that the individual must have had a greater than 10% chance of growing a $20 million profit business to achieve an expected value of $200k/yr in compensation. You would be wrong.

However, if the individual only had to generate $2.5 million a year in profit through their business to take home $2 million a year, that 10% success rate is more realistic.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#68

Post by snarf21 »

chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

I generally agree with you. People often say we should "just do X" with taxes, et. al. and we'd have lots of money for Y. They fail to understand that if you change the rules, you will change the behavior. Extremely rich people get (and stay) that way by leveraging their resources to not pay taxes if they don't want to. The economy will always need jobs and housing and the tax code must incentivize for those necessities. If you make things too costly, companies will move to other countries that would be glad to tax you less. This already happens at the state level as local governments compete on deals to attract good jobs to help their economy.

We spend way too much effort designing these systems as all "stick" and no "carrot". There are much easier ways to incentivize the rich (and companies) for the behavior you want.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#69

Post by zip1234 »

Iv wrote: post #44
chollida1 wrote: post #2

I wrote this a few years ago in response to a similar piece: The problem is that the rich have the ability to take their income in alot of different ways. Tax income more, they'll take it as dividends. Tax dividends more, they'll take it as capital gains. Tax capital gains, they won't realize their capital gains until they can offset them with realized losses or they'll just get bank loans again't their stock holding…

That's like saying it will always be possible to murder someone so there is no point in trying to curb chemical weapons sales to children. Every loop closed makes tax evasion harder and riskier. There will always be people who do it, like there will always be people killing other people, but it is worth making it hard and risky enough that most people will consider other solutions before resorting to murder/tax evasi…

Tax evasion is illegally not paying the taxes that are due. If you are taking advantages of legal loopholes, it is not tax evasion.

Re: When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer

#70

Post by cpursley »

4c2383f5c88e911 wrote: post #36
tici_88 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is that no tax code can close all loop holes because you just can't foresee the creative ways people will out maneuver the tax code." I disagree. I simple flat tax rate where everything is taxed at a single rate would close every single one of the loopholes above, if only by making it moot. The fact that the rich can maneuver themselves into a much lower tax rate than the average person presents a signif…

A flat tax rate is not a good idea whatsoever; if you tax e.g. 20% of earnings ,do you believe people who earn $30k a year are impacted the same way as people earning $200k or more? Sure, those who earn more pay more, but it hits them in "extra" earnings, while the poor are taxed on money they need to survive. A (very) progressive tax rate with a few ways of reducing the tax based on social (e.g. number of children,…

> A flat tax rate is not a good idea whatsoever

Tell this to the nations which have successfully implemented a flat tax:

http://www.economist.com/node/3860731

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_tax#Countries_that_have_f...

It's ironic that a number of former Soviet countries have moved on to the flat tax, while the west has a progressive income tax (#2 plank of the Communist Manifesto).

Post reply on HN